Great book. I also like America Calling by Claude Fischer, which calls itself a social history of the phone up to 1940.
The new Gleick book this piece is excerpted from gets the most into the technical aspects, which makes sense given Gleick’s background. There’s also a lot about the patent disputes in the early days of the phone and its impact in its early days on popular culture.
I think there’s still more phone history to be written. I’d like to see a social history of the phone in the period basically from WW II to the iPhone, including unexpected and deviant use of the phone: phone phreaking, prank calls, music over the phone, sex lines, collect calling, right wing voice message lines, phone zap protests, telemarketing, and I’m sure things I don’t even know about. Plus how the rise of technology like cordless phones, extension lines, etc. delivered privacy for phone users in their own homes.
The book seems to be angling more towards the impact of the Bell System and Bell Labs, which could certainly be argued as more impactful than the telegram, even if downstream. AT&T and Verizon both emerged from the Bell Breakup. Western Union still exists, but as a shadow of its Guilded Age self.
The new Gleick book this piece is excerpted from gets the most into the technical aspects, which makes sense given Gleick’s background. There’s also a lot about the patent disputes in the early days of the phone and its impact in its early days on popular culture.
I think there’s still more phone history to be written. I’d like to see a social history of the phone in the period basically from WW II to the iPhone, including unexpected and deviant use of the phone: phone phreaking, prank calls, music over the phone, sex lines, collect calling, right wing voice message lines, phone zap protests, telemarketing, and I’m sure things I don’t even know about. Plus how the rise of technology like cordless phones, extension lines, etc. delivered privacy for phone users in their own homes.
Telegraph seems like the more significant milestone, but putting that in the title of a book wouldn't sell many copies.
Which, after all, is why people want to read about it. Most people don’t have much firsthand experience with the telegraph.
“How the Telephone Changed the World”
(Though in this rare instance the the title still makes some sense.)